Not necessarily... a falseness can be exposed without the subject being disproved. If for example someone said that the President-elect is homophobic because he doesn't believe in gay marriage but then Sir Elton John, the well known musician and spokesman on gay rights, came along and said that opposition to gay marriage does not make one homophobic because one can be gay like himself and still hold that view then he would have exposed the weakness in the original premise without proving Obama's sympathies one way or the other.

Or, to vary the terms, willy nilly, Sir Elton would have disproved the proposition that statement A demonstrated the truth of statement B.

You can work it around like that if you want but the dictionary definition doesn't require it and I don't think MrB would be very happy about it because he was trying to suggest that the Pope had disproved nothing.

Okay, shoot... the Pope says that the mere fact that something is demanded like the 'right' to destroy the rainforest on grounds that global warming is not caused by it or if it is it's not a danger to humanity... I'm with you... disproves the proposition that the demand to do it demonstrates the truth of the justification for it. Neat.

The pope says that the assertion of A disproves the proposition that the assertion of A demonstrates the justification for A.

Seems to me that what the pope has done is merely give voice to his prejudice. Now, his prejudice may well be shared by a great many people, and may well be a historical characteristic of human experience. But neither of those phenomena debunks/disproves anything at all.

Okay you're 'Statement A and Statement B' analogy doesn't adapt to the Pope's Christmas message which was about 'demands' and 'justifications' so he didn't disprove anything after all - just like I said originally.

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Seems to me that what the pope has done is merely give voice to his prejudice.

The question of whether destruction of the rainforest or any other human activity is a threat to humanity is ultimately a factual question not one of prejudice. What he did was expose the falseness of the idea that just because an activity was demanded necessarily meant that it was justified.

Of course it's true that the mere fact that something is demanded does not make the demand just. I was a five year old kid once upon a time, you know. And I've had a five year old kid whom I raised too.

If your argument is simply that to demand A does not make A valid--who can disagree with the truth of that proposition? But it's a very different thing to deny that gender is socially constructed. Where's the evidence? Where's the argument? Again, if your point is simply that to demand A does not make A valid, then we're on the same page. If your argument goes beyond that, then please clarify.

And don't mix in the rain forest thing. The thread is about the pope's assertion that gender (not sexual) differences are in nature, not in culture. That his holiness requires me to believe such an assertion does not make the assertion valid.

If your argument is simply that to demand A does not make A valid--who can disagree with the truth of that proposition?

Unfortunately a few people on this forum... gay marriage is demanded so anyone who disagrees is homophobic.

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A does not make A valid... If your argument goes beyond that, then please clarify.

My argument doesn't go beyond it at any rate in this thread because I've already personally debunked several times on these boards the fallacious reasoning that equality requires men and women in all respects to be treated in the same way.

I've provided two definitions that any reasonable person would regard as synonymous (i.e. meaning the same or nearly the same thing) plus a reference that explicitly links them as synonymous -- I could provide many more form other reputable sources, but I'm not wasting my time ...

Yet you claim otherwise unless the definitions are *exactly* the same ...

Meh, this conversation once again reaffirms my belief that trying to have a fruitful or even logical discussion with you is often pointless ...

I'll leave it back to Steve and others to play your game ... Happy New Year!

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